Two pleaded guilty in the Magistrate Court yesterday for the Automated Enforcement System (AES) summonses received ever since the system started its first phase operation on Sept 23.

The two were the first batch who received notices to appear at Jalan Duta Magistrate Court, out of 120 people who failed to pay the summonses after 60 days under the Road Transport (Camera-Recorded Offences) Rules 2012.

Both were ordered by the magistrate to each pay the minimum fine of RM300. The magistrate also ordered warrant arrests to be issued for the 118 people who failed to turn up.

Those who received notifications to appear at the Magistrate Court Jalan Duta had committed traffic offences in Kuala Lumpur, namely at traffic lights of Jalan Kelang Lama and Jalan Ipoh as well as for exceeding the 80km/h speed limit at KM D7.7 Sungai Besi.

It is learned that the two traffic offenders were determined to plead guilty and settle the summonses despite the last minute intervention by Anti-Postal Summons Campaign (Kase) group at the court complex yesterday.

A source from Road Transport Department said the group’s lawyer Zulhazmi Shariff tried to persuade the duo not to plead guilty.

“The Kase legal representative offered their help and asked both to contest the AES summonses in court. But apparently both refused to receive assistance. Eventually, the duo decided to plead guilty and paid the fine,” the source said.

The first phase of the AES system, consisting of six fixed speed cameras, four mobile speed cameras, and four fixed traffic light cameras, has been in operation for the past two months.

These cameras are located at ‘blackspots’, locations which are identified by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) as places with a high rate of road accidents.

RTD are currently rolling out more AES cameras to cover the rest of the 817 blackspots around Peninsula and East Malaysia, as part of the second phase of the AES’ implementation which is said to complete by end of next year.

Of the 831 cameras, 566 will be speed cameras, whereas 265 are traffic light cameras, though RTD says that roughly 30 per cent of those cameras will be mobile cameras, deployed in areas that lack the proper infrastructure needed for a fixed camera.